Context: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKzRf8B-oDk
Would it be possible to run mpv and a browser directly on hardware somehow? Perhaps in an environment that doesn’t classify as an operating system according to the definition in those California codes?
I know that an operating system distributes workloads and facilitates communication between various hardware components, but would it be possible to build a Linux kernel that is “only” an interface to the CPU, a GPU, a sound card and a keyboard? One that can take commands to run for instance a browser[1] and mpv? Having the user manually - through commands of physical switches - handle the inter component communication? Or perhaps by being a kernel it already falls under the definition of an OS?
I’m just spitballing here. Barely know what I’m talking about, so please enlighten me! :D
Nowadays, a browser feels like a container that can run most things a physical computer would: stream media, serve as a word processor, play simple games, what have you. ↩︎
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If you are concerned about the new California law it is important to point out that the California law only applies to Operating Systems vendors and providers. It does not apply to end users.
For example, if you obtain a copy of a Canadian linux distro and install and use it on your computer in California, you aren’t breaking any law.
What you’re talking about would be called running a browser on “bare metal.” The OS is typically on charge of resource management between the various tasks. Access to the processor, storage, screen, input devices, sound, network. The os is a layer that mediates these devices. On bare metal you have to do ALL of that.
I’ve seen some interest in bare metal web servers in the past which some believe to be more secure. But I don’t think I’ve seen browsers on bare metal. There’s so much browsers need to do anymore. But anyways, bare metal would be the search terms you want to start using.
Edit: “bare metal” seems to have a newer usage for servers, so the papers I found were calling it “Bare PC.” Example: https://doi.org/10.1109/HPCC.2009.34
The os is a layer that mediates these devices.
The OS doesn’t just mediate the devices, it also provides a consistent interface for software to talk to the hardware. E.g. software doesn’t care if you’re using a USB or PS/2 keyboard, the operating system handles that.
I’ve seen some interest in bare metal web servers
Usually in the context of servers, bare metal means it’s not running in a VM, and you are dedicated to the hardware. E.g. one server may otherwise be running multiple customers all isolated from each other using VMs, with bare metal servers you are the only customer using the hardware. They’re supposedly more secure as there isn’t another customer that could use some VM escape vulnerability and read your data. It’s nothing to do with whether you are running an OS or not (although no OS is very not practical on production servers).
That’s a good point about what the OS provides. I come from an embedded context, so often RTOS are not much more than a kernel that’s handling some basic threads and processor access. There was a really interesting talk at USENIX a few years ago (Usenix 21 keynote with Timothy Roscoe, I just looked it up) that was basically saying that a modern OS like linux, isn’t even accessing hardware and is just an OS in a system of OSs on a computer.
So you are not wrong about what you are calling bare metal, but that usage is more popular at the moment, but the older meaning of bare metal actually just means “no OS.” It’s still very common in embedded world. They are the same words, but do have different meanings.
I cannot find it at the moment, but about 10 years ago I had found a guy at Tufts (I think) who was publishing about actual bare metal (no os) single process machines that would run a server with nothing else. It was supposed to be helpful for security reasons. It was definitely whacky. I cannot find it because the server-farm usage of bare metal has taken over :(
[Bare-Metal (redirect on wiki)[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bare_metal ]
I do now see that “bare metal server” is not going to be the right search term. Perhaps bare metal computing? I’m not sure. But what I am talking about pre-dates virtualization.
Edit: For servers, it seems the papers are calling it “Bare PC” Example: https://doi.org/10.1109/HPCC.2009.34
The other advantage of a bare metal server is that the computing resources are guaranteed to actually be there when you need them. VM Providers are known to overbook their actual hardware, so if other customers happen to use more compute than anticipated then your VMs mysteriously won’t have the performance you paid for.
There’s also a computational cost to virtualization itself, so you can add slightly more performance to a single server before you have to use a distributed system, but I doubt that’s significant for more than a handful of businesses.
I was use the pre-virtual machine usage of bare metal to actually mean “No OS.” You are just raw-dog running code on the machine.
Yeah I understand that’s what you meant, but it’s not what people think when they hear “bare-metal server” or what the commenter I was responding to was talking about.
I’m not sure anyone is really deploying servers without an OS, even though I’m sure the concept has a lot of merit. Unfortunately there’s a strong trend of putting the absolute minimum possible effort into deployment at the expense of basically everything, which is how you end up with really stupid ideas like “serverless computing”.
There is no hard definition within the laws so this is all speculation. This means that there is no technical answer because the question in is core is a legal one.
Your TV for example can have a browser without problems.
You can have an integrated board that runs a full Linux without you being able to touch the underlying OS and let that start a browser, too. You know those tv screens that show you traffic into it flight plans at the airport? Those are often full Linux computers set up exactly like that.
In short: we’ll only know when the law is actually being tested. It’s written in a way that I as layman could talk and software and even most hardware into it’s definition, it’s absolute bullshit…
